The Omega Co-Axial Escapement Fully Explained

The watchmaking industry is never short of innovations. Whether in the field of materials, movement architectures, displays or regulating organs, this industry never ceases to amaze with technical solutions to improve the accuracy of our beloved mechanical watches. However, when it comes to production at an industrial level, innovation is far more scarce. If you think about it, the escapement of our watches, the lever escapement (which is used by 99% of the mechanical movements) was conceived in 1750… However, there’s one man, and one brand, that believed in changing this situation, by launching the only escapement produced on an industrial scale other than the Swiss lever escapement. This is the story of the Co-Axial escapement, how Omega adopted it, and how it works.

Challenging a system that is as accepted as the Swiss lever takes more than just a spirit of innovation. It takes conviction, it takes devotion and it takes time. This is exactly what happened to master watchmaker George Daniels, the inventor of the Co-Axial escapement… Because even though he was convinced that this new device would be a stunning alternative to the established lever escapement, his idea took years before being recognized and serially produced, before becoming a cornerstone of Omega Master Chronometer movements. And the solution came with the personal backing of Nicolas G. Hayek, Chairman of Omega’s parent company, Swatch Group.

Today, we wanted to return to the fascinating topic of the Co-Axial escapement, how it was created, how it works, how Omega made the decision to adopt it and how it was deployed over its entire collection… And you can read the in-depth story on the Co-Axial escapement right here.